Chapter 53

7Plato, Republic. v. pp. 477, 478.

The distinction between these two is farther argued in the elaborate dialogue called TheÃ¦tetus, where Sokrates, trying to explain what Knowledge or Cognition is, refutes three proposed explanations and shows, to his own satisfaction, that it is not sensible perception, that it is not true opinion, that it is not true opinion coupled with rational explanation. But he confesses himself unable to show what Knowledge or Cognition is, though he continues to announce it as correlating with Realities Cogitable and Universal only.8

8Plato, TheÃ¦tÃªt. pp. 173, 176, 186. Groteâ€™s Plato, II.xxvi.pp.320-395.

In the passages above noticed, and in many others besides, we find Plato drawing a capital distinction between Universals eternal and unchangeable (each of them a Unit as well as a Universal),9which he affirms to be the only real Entia, â€” and Particulars transient and variable, which are not Entia at all, but are always coming or going; the Universals being objects of cogitation and of a psychological fact called Cognition, which he declares to be infallible; and the Particulars being objects of Sense, and of another psychological fact radically different, called Opinion, which he pronounces to be fallible and misleading. Plato holds, moreover, that the Particulars, though generically distinct and separate from the Universals, have nevertheless a certain communion or participation with them, by virtue of which they become half existent and half cognizable, but never attain to full reality or cognizability.

9Plato, PhilÃªbus, p. 15, A. B.; Republic, x. p. 596, A. The phrase of Milton, â€œunus et universus,â€� expresses this idea; also the lines:â€”â€œSed quamlibet natura sit communior,Tamen seorsus extat ad modum unius,â€� &c.

9Plato, PhilÃªbus, p. 15, A. B.; Republic, x. p. 596, A. The phrase of Milton, â€œunus et universus,â€� expresses this idea; also the lines:â€”

â€œSed quamlibet natura sit communior,Tamen seorsus extat ad modum unius,â€� &c.

This is the first statement of the theory of complete and unqualified Realism, which came to be known in the Middle Ages under the phraseUniversalia ante remorextra rem, and to be distinguished from the two counter-theoriesUniversalia in re(Aristotelian), andUniversalia post rem(Nominalism). Indeed, the Platonic theory goes even farther than the phraseUniversalia ante rem, which recognizes the particular as a reality, though posterior and derivative; for Plato attenuates it into phantom and shadow. The problem was now clearly set out in philosophy â€” What are the objects correlating with Universal terms, and with Particular terms? What is the relation between the two? Plato first gave to the world the solution called Realism, which lasted so long after his time. We shall presently find Aristotle taking issue with him on both the affirmations included in his theory.

But though Plato first introduced thistheory into philosophy, he was neither blind to the objections against it, nor disposed to conceal them. His mind was at once poetically constructive and dialectically destructive; to both these impulses the theory furnished ample scope, while the form of his compositions (separate dialogues, with no mention of his own name) rendered it easy to give expression either to one or to the other. Before Aristotle arose to take issue with him, we shall find him taking issue with himself, especially in the dialogues called Sophistes and Parmenides, not to mention the PhilÃªbus, wherein he breaks down the unity even of his sovereign Idea, which in the Republic governs the Cogitable World, â€” the Idea of Good.10

10Plato, PhilÃªbus, pp. 65, 66. See Groteâ€™s Plato, II. xxx. pp.584, 585.

Both in the Sophistes and in the Parmenides, the leading disputant introduced by Plato is not Sokrates, but Parmenides and another person (unnamed) of the Eleatic school. In both dialogues objections are taken against the Realistic theory elsewhere propounded by Plato, though the objections adduced in the one are quite distinct from those noticed in the other. In the Sophistes, the Eleatic reasoner impugns successfully the theories of two classes of philosophers, one the opposite of the other: first, the Materialists, who recognized no Entia except the Percepta of Sense; next, the Realistic Idealists, who refused to recognize these last as real Entia, or as anything more than transient and mutable Generata or Fientia, while they confined the title of Entia to the Forms, cogitable, incorporeal, eternal, immutable, neither acting on anything, nor acted upon by anything. These persons are called in the Sophistes â€œFriends of Forms,â€� and their theory is exactly what we have already cited out of so many other dialogues of Plato, drawing the marked line of separation between Entia and Fientia; between the Immutable, which alone is real and cognizable, and the Mutable, neither real nor cognizable. The Eleate in the Sophistes controverts this Platonic theory, and maintains that among the Universal Entia there are included items mutable as well as immutable; that both are real and both cognizable; that Non-Ens (instead of being set in glaring contrast with Ens, as the totally incogitable against the infallibly cognizable)11is one among the multiplicity of Real Forms, meaning only what is different from Ens, and therefore cognizable not less than Ens; that Percepta and Cogitata are alike real, yet both only relatively real, correlating with minds percipient and cogitant. Thus, the reasoning in the Sophistes, while it sets aside the doctrine ofUniversalia ante rem, does not mark out any other relation between Universals and Particulars (neitherin renorpost rem). It discusses chiefly the intercommunion or reciprocal exclusion of Universals with respect to each other; and upon this point, far from representing them as objects of infallible Cognition as contrasted with Opinion, it enrolls both Opinion and Discourse among the Universals themselves, and declares both of them to be readily combinable with Non-Ens and Falsehood. So that we have here error and fallibility recognized in the region of Universals, as well as in that of Particulars.

11Plato, Republic, v. pp. 478, 479.

But it is principally in the dialogue Parmenides that Plato discusses with dialectical acuteness the relation of Universals to their Particulars; putting aside the intercommunion (affirmed in the Sophistes) or reciprocal exclusion between one Universal and another, as an hypothesis at least supremely difficult to vindicate, if at all admissible.12In the dialogue, Sokrates is introduced in the unusual character of a youthful and ardent aspirant in philosophy, defending the Platonic theory of Ideas as we have seen it proclaimed in the Republic and in the TimÃ¦us. The veteran Parmenides appears as the opponent to cross-examine him; and not only impugns the theory by several interrogatories which Sokrates cannot answer, but also intimates that there remain behind other objections equally serious requiring answer. Yet at the same time he declares that, unless the theory be admitted, and unlessUniversalia ante remcan be sustained as existent, there is no trustworthy cognition attainable, nor any end to be served by philosophical debate. Moreover, Parmenides warns Sokrates that, before he can acquire a mental condition competent to defend the theory, he must go through numerous preliminary dialectical exercises; following out both the affirmative and the negative hypotheses in respect to a great variety of Universals severally. To illustrate the course prescribed, Parmenides gives a long specimen of this dialectic in handling his own doctrine of Ens Unum. He takes first the hypothesisSi Unum est, next the hypothesisSi Unum non est; and he deduces from each, by ingenious subtleties, double and contradictory conclusions. These he sums up at the end, challengingSokrates to solve the puzzles before affirming his thesis.

12Plato, Parmenid. p. 129, E.; with Stallbaumâ€™s Prolegomena to that dialogue, pp. 38-42.

Apart from these antinomies at the close of the dialogue, the cross-examination of Sokrates by Parmenides, in the middle of it, brings out forcibly against the Realistic theory objections such as those urged against it by the Nominalists of the Middle Ages. In the first place, we find that Plato conceived the theory itself differently from Porphyry and the philosophers that wrote subsequently to the Peripatetic criticism. Porphyry and his successors put the question, Whether Genera and Species had a separate existence, apart from the Individuals composing them? Now, the world of Forms (the Cogitable or Ideal world as opposed to the Sensible) is not here conceived by Plato as peopled in the first instance by Genera and Species. Its first tenants areAttributes, and attributes distinctlyrelativeâ€” Likeness, One and Many, Justice, Beauty, Goodness, &c. Sokrates, being asked by Parmenides whether he admits Forms corresponding with these names, answers unhesitatingly in the affirmative. He is next asked whether he admits forms corresponding to the names Man, Fire, Water, &c., and, instead of replying in the affirmative, intimates that he does not feel sure. Lastly, the question is put whether there are Forms corresponding to the names of mean objects â€” Mud, Hair, Dirt, &c. At first he answers emphatically in the negative, and treats the affirmative as preposterous; there exist no cogitable Hair, &c., but only the object of sense that we so denominate. Yet, on second thoughts, he is not without misgiving that there may be Forms even of these; though the supposition is so repulsive to him that he shakes it off as much as he can. Upon this last expression of sentiment Parmenides comments, ascribing it to the juvenility of Sokrates, and intimating that, when Sokrates has become more deeply imbued with philosophy, he will cease to set aside any of these objects as unworthy.

Here we see that, in the theory of Realism as conceived by Sokrates, the Self-Existent Universals are not Genera and Species as such, but Attributes â€” not Second Substances or Essences, but Accidents or Attributes,e.g.Quality, Quantity, Relation, &c., to use the language afterwards introduced in the Aristotelian Categories; that no Genera or Species are admitted except with hesitation; and that the mean and undignified among them are scarcely admissible at all. This sentiment of dignity, associated with theUniversalia ante rem, and emotional necessity for tracing back particulars to an august and respected origin, is to be noted as a marked and lasting feature of the Realistic creed; and it even passed on to theUniversalia in re, as afterwards affirmed by Aristotle. Parmenides here takes exception to it (and so does Plato elsewhere13) as inconsistent with faithful adherence to scientific analogy.

13Plato, Sophist. p. 227, A. Politikus, p. 266, D.

Parmenides then proceeds (interrogating Sokrates) first to state what the Realistic theory is (Universals apart from Particulars â€” Particulars apart from Universals, yet having some participation in them, and named after them), next to bring out the difficulties attaching to it. The Universal or Form (he argues) cannot be entire in each of its many separate particulars; nor yet is it divisible, so that a part can be in one particular, and a part in another. For take the Forms Great, Equal, Small; Equal magnitudes are equal because they partake in the Form of Equality. But how can a part of the Form Equality, less than the whole Form, cause the magnitudes to be equal? How can the Form Smallness have any parts less than itself, or how can it be greater than anything?

The Form cannot be divided, nor can it co-exist undivided in each separate particular; accordingly, particulars can have no participation in it at all.

Again, you assume a Form of Greatness, because you see many particular objects, each of which appears to you great; this being the point of resemblance between them. But if you compare the Form of Greatness with any or all of the particular great objects, you will perceive a resemblance between them; this will require you to assume a higher Form, and so on upward without limit.

Sokrates, thus embarrassed, starts the hypothesis that perhaps each of these Forms may be a cogitation, and nothing more, existing only within the mind. How? rejoins Parmenides. Can there be a cogitation of nothing at all? Must not each cogitation have a realcogitatumcorrelating with it, â€” in this case, the one Form that is identical throughout many particulars? If you say that particulars partake in the Form, and that each Form is nothing but a cogitation, does not this imply that each particular is itself cogitant?

Again Sokrates urges that the Forms are constant, unalterable, stationary in nature; that particulars resemble them, and participate in them only so far as to resemble them. But (rejoins Parmenides), if particulars resemble the Form,the Form must resemble them; accordingly, you must admit another and higher Form, as the point of resemblance between the Form and its particulars; and so on, upwards.

And farther (continues Parmenides), even when admitting these Universal Forms as self-existent, how can we know anything about them? Forms can correlate only with Forms, Particulars only with Particulars. Thus, if I, an individual man, am master, I correlate with another individual man, who is my servant, and he on his side with me. But the Form of mastership, the Universal self-existent Master, must correlate with the Form of servantship, the Universal Servant. The correlation does not subsist between members of the two different worlds, but between different members of the same world respectively. Thus the Form of Cognition correlates with the Form of Truth; and the Form of each variety of Cognition, with the Form of the corresponding variety of Truth. But we, as individual subjects, do not possess in ourselves the Form of Cognition; our cognition is our own, correlating with such truth as belongs to it and to ourselves. Our cognition cannot reach to the Form of Truth, nor therefore to any other Form; we can know nothing of the Self-good, Self-beautiful, Self-just, &c., even supposing such Forms to exist.

These acute and subtle arguments are nowhere answered by Plato. They remain as unsolved difficulties, embarrassing the Realistic theory; they are reinforced by farther difficulties no less grave, included in the dialectical antinomies of Parmenides at the close of the dialogue, and by an unknown number of others indicated as producible, though not actually produced. Yet still Plato, with full consciousness of these difficulties, asserts unequivocally that, unless the Realistic theory can be sustained, philosophical research is fruitless, and truth cannot be reached. We see thus that the author of the theory has also left on record some of the most forcible arguments against it. It appears from Aristotle (though we do not learn the fact from the Platonic dialogues), that Plato, in his later years, symbolized the Ideas or Forms under the denomination of Ideal Numbers, generated by implication of The One with what he called The Great and Little, or the Indeterminate Dyad. This last, however, is not the programme wherein the Realistic theory stands opposed to Nominalism.

But the dialogue Parmenides, though full of acuteness on the negative side, not only furnishes no counter-theory, but asserts continued allegiance to the Realistic theory, which passes as Platoâ€™s doctrine to his successors. To impugn, forcibly and even unanswerably, a theory at once so sweeping and so little fortified by positive reasons, was what many dialecticians of the age could do. But to do this, and at the same time to construct a counter-theory, was a task requiring higher powers of mind. One, however, of Platoâ€™s disciples and successors was found adequate to the task â€” Aristotle.

The Realistic Ontology of Plato is founded (as Aristotle himself remarks) upon mistrust and contempt of perception of sense, as bearing entirely on the flux of particulars, which never stand still so as to become objects of knowledge. All reality, and all cognoscibility, were supposed to reside in the separate world of Cogitable Universals (extra remorante rem), of which, in some confused manner, particulars were supposed to partake. The Universal, apart from its particulars, was clearly and fully knowable, furnishing propositions constantly and infallibly true: the Universal as manifested in its particulars was never fully knowable, nor could ever become the subject of propositions, except such as were sometimes true and sometimes false.

Against this separation of the Universal from its Particulars, Aristotle entered a strong protest; as well as against the subsidiary hypothesis of a participation of the latter in the former; which participation, when the two had been declared separate, appeared to him not only untenable and uncertified, but unintelligible. His arguments are interesting, as being among the earliest objections known to us against Realism.

1. Realism is a useless multiplication of existences, serving no purpose. Wherever a number of particulars â€” be they substances, eternal or perishable, or be they qualities, or relations â€” bear the same name, and thus have a Universalin repredicable of them in common, in every such case Plato assumes a Universalextra rem, or a separate self-existent Form; which explains nothing, and merely doubles the total to be summed up.14

14Aristot. Metaph.A.ix. p. 990, a. 34;M.iv. p. 1079, a. 2. Here we have the first appearance of the argument that William of Ockham, the Nominalist, put in the foreground of his case against Realism: â€œEntia non sunt multiplicanda prÃ¦ter necessitatem.â€�

2. Plato's arguments in support of Realism are either inconclusive, or prove too much. Wherever there is cognition (he argues), there must exist an eternal and unchangeable object of cognition, apart from particulars, which are changeableand perishable. No, replies Aristotle: cognition does not require theUniversale extra rem; for theUniversale in re, the constant predicate of all the particulars, is sufficient as an object of cognition. Moreover, if the argument were admitted, it would prove that there existed separate Forms or Universals of mere negations; for many of the constant predicates are altogether negative. Again, if Self-existent Universals are to be assumed corresponding to all our cogitations, we must assume Universals of extinct particulars, and even of fictitious particulars, such as hippocentaurs or chimeras; for of these, too, we have phantasms or concepts in our minds.15

15Aristot. Metaphys.A.ix. p. 990, b. 14; Scholia, p. 565, b. 9, Br.

3. The most subtle disputants on this matter include Relata, among the Universal Ideas or Forms. This is absurd, because these do not constitute any Genus by themselves. These disputants have also urged against the Realistic theory that powerful and unsolved objection, entitled â€œThe Third Man.â€�16

16Aristot. Metaph.A.ix. p. 990, b. 15: οἱ ἀκριβέστεροι τῶν λόγων. Both the points here noticed appear in the Parmenides of Plato.The objection called â€œThe Third Manâ€� is expressed by saying that, if there be a Form of man, resembling individual men, you must farther postulate some higher Form, marking the point of resemblance between the two; and so on higher, without end.The authenticity of the Platonic Parmenides is disputed by Ueberweg (Untersuchungen Ã¼ber die Echtheit und Zeitfolge der Platonischen Schriften, pp. 176-181), upon the ground (among others) that, while Aristotle never cites the dialogue by its title, nor ever makes probable allusion to it, the Parmenides advances against the theory of the Platonic Ideas this objection of Aristotleâ€™s, known under the name of â€œThe Third Man.â€� Aristotle (says Ueberweg), if he had known the Parmenides, would not have advanced this objection as his own. We must therefore suppose that the Parmenides was composed later than Aristotle, and borrowed this objection from Aristotle.In reply to this argument I transcribe the passage of Aristotle (Metaphys.A.ix. p. 990, b. 15) to which Ueberweg himself refers: ἔτι δὲ οἱ ἀκριβέστεροι τῶν λόγων οἱ μὲν τῶν πρός τι ποιοῦσιν ἰδέας, ὧν οὔ φαμεν εἶναι καθâ€™ αὑτὸ γένος, οἱ δὲ τὸν τρίτον ἄνθρωπον λέγουσιν. The same words (with the exception of φασίν in place of φαμέν) are repeated inM.p. 1079, a. 11.Now these words plainly indicate that Aristotle does not profess to advance the objection, called ὁ τρίτος ἄνθρωπος, as his own, or as broached by himself. He derives it from what he calls οἱ ἀκριβέστεροι τῶν λόγων. The charge against Aristotle, therefore, of advancing as his own an objection which had already been suggested by Plato himself in the Parmenides, is unfounded. And it is the more unfounded, because Aristotle, in the first book of the Metaphysica, speaks in the language of a Platonist, and considers himself as partly responsible for the doctrine of Ideas: δείκνυμεν, φαμέν, οἰόμεθα, &c. (Alexand. in Schol. p. 563, b. 27, Brand.)But what are we to understand by these words â€” οἱ ἀκριβέστεροι τῶν λόγων â€” from which Aristotle derives the objection? The words refer to certain expositions or arguments (oral, or written, or both) which were within the knowledge of Aristotle, and were of a peculiarly subtle and analytical character. Among them is very probably included the Platonic Parmenides itself, distinguished as it is for extreme subtlety. (See Stallbaumâ€™s Prolegg. pp. 249, 277, 337, who says, â€œIn uno ferÃ¨ Parmenide idearum doctrina subtilius investigatur.â€�) I see no reason why it should not be included within the fair and reasonable meaning of the words. And such being the case, I cannot go along with Ueberweg (and other critics) who say that Aristotle has not even made an indirect allusion to the Parmenides.But why did not Aristotle specify the Parmenides directly and by name? I do not know what was his reason. We may feel surprise (as Stallbaum feels, p. 337) that he does not; but, when critics infer from the omission that he did not know the dialogue as a work of Plato, I contest the inference. We see that Alexander, in his elaborate commentary (p. 566, Schol. Brand.) makes no allusion to the Parmenides, though he alludes to EudÃªmus, to DiodÃ´rus, Kronus, and to the manner in which the objection called ὁ τρίτος ἄνθρωπος was handled by various Sophists. Now we are fully assured that the Parmenides was acknowledged as a work of Plato, long before the time of Alexander (since it is included in the catalogue of Thrasyllus); yet he, the most instructed of all the commentators, makes no allusion to it. Why he did not, I cannot say, but his omission affords no ground for concluding that he did not know it, or did not trust its authenticity.

16Aristot. Metaph.A.ix. p. 990, b. 15: οἱ ἀκριβέστεροι τῶν λόγων. Both the points here noticed appear in the Parmenides of Plato.

The objection called â€œThe Third Manâ€� is expressed by saying that, if there be a Form of man, resembling individual men, you must farther postulate some higher Form, marking the point of resemblance between the two; and so on higher, without end.

The authenticity of the Platonic Parmenides is disputed by Ueberweg (Untersuchungen Ã¼ber die Echtheit und Zeitfolge der Platonischen Schriften, pp. 176-181), upon the ground (among others) that, while Aristotle never cites the dialogue by its title, nor ever makes probable allusion to it, the Parmenides advances against the theory of the Platonic Ideas this objection of Aristotleâ€™s, known under the name of â€œThe Third Man.â€� Aristotle (says Ueberweg), if he had known the Parmenides, would not have advanced this objection as his own. We must therefore suppose that the Parmenides was composed later than Aristotle, and borrowed this objection from Aristotle.

In reply to this argument I transcribe the passage of Aristotle (Metaphys.A.ix. p. 990, b. 15) to which Ueberweg himself refers: ἔτι δὲ οἱ ἀκριβέστεροι τῶν λόγων οἱ μὲν τῶν πρός τι ποιοῦσιν ἰδέας, ὧν οὔ φαμεν εἶναι καθâ€™ αὑτὸ γένος, οἱ δὲ τὸν τρίτον ἄνθρωπον λέγουσιν. The same words (with the exception of φασίν in place of φαμέν) are repeated inM.p. 1079, a. 11.

Now these words plainly indicate that Aristotle does not profess to advance the objection, called ὁ τρίτος ἄνθρωπος, as his own, or as broached by himself. He derives it from what he calls οἱ ἀκριβέστεροι τῶν λόγων. The charge against Aristotle, therefore, of advancing as his own an objection which had already been suggested by Plato himself in the Parmenides, is unfounded. And it is the more unfounded, because Aristotle, in the first book of the Metaphysica, speaks in the language of a Platonist, and considers himself as partly responsible for the doctrine of Ideas: δείκνυμεν, φαμέν, οἰόμεθα, &c. (Alexand. in Schol. p. 563, b. 27, Brand.)

But what are we to understand by these words â€” οἱ ἀκριβέστεροι τῶν λόγων â€” from which Aristotle derives the objection? The words refer to certain expositions or arguments (oral, or written, or both) which were within the knowledge of Aristotle, and were of a peculiarly subtle and analytical character. Among them is very probably included the Platonic Parmenides itself, distinguished as it is for extreme subtlety. (See Stallbaumâ€™s Prolegg. pp. 249, 277, 337, who says, â€œIn uno ferÃ¨ Parmenide idearum doctrina subtilius investigatur.â€�) I see no reason why it should not be included within the fair and reasonable meaning of the words. And such being the case, I cannot go along with Ueberweg (and other critics) who say that Aristotle has not even made an indirect allusion to the Parmenides.

But why did not Aristotle specify the Parmenides directly and by name? I do not know what was his reason. We may feel surprise (as Stallbaum feels, p. 337) that he does not; but, when critics infer from the omission that he did not know the dialogue as a work of Plato, I contest the inference. We see that Alexander, in his elaborate commentary (p. 566, Schol. Brand.) makes no allusion to the Parmenides, though he alludes to EudÃªmus, to DiodÃ´rus, Kronus, and to the manner in which the objection called ὁ τρίτος ἄνθρωπος was handled by various Sophists. Now we are fully assured that the Parmenides was acknowledged as a work of Plato, long before the time of Alexander (since it is included in the catalogue of Thrasyllus); yet he, the most instructed of all the commentators, makes no allusion to it. Why he did not, I cannot say, but his omission affords no ground for concluding that he did not know it, or did not trust its authenticity.

4. The supporters of these Self-existent Universals trace them to twoprincipiaâ€” The One, and the Indeterminate Dyad; which they affirm to be prior in existence even to the Universals themselves. But this cannot be granted; for the Idea of Number must be logically prior to the Idea of the Dyad; but the Idea of Number is relative, and the Relative can never be prior to the Absolute or Self-existent.

5. If we grant that, wherever there is one constant predicate belonging to many particulars, or wherever there is stable and trustworthy cognition, in all such cases a Self-existent Universal Correlateextra remis to be assumed, we shall find that this applies not merely to Substances or Essences, but also to the other Categories â€” Quality, Quantity, Relation, &c. But hereby we exclude the possibility of participation in them by Particulars; since from such participation the Particular derives its Substance or Essence alone, not its accidental predicates. Thus the Self-existent Universal Dyad is eternal: but a particular pair, which derives its essential property of doubleness from partaking in this Universal Dyad, does not at the same time partake of eternity, unless by accident. Accordingly, there are no Universal Ideas, except of Substances or Essences: the common name, when applied to the world of sense and to that of cogitation, signifies the same thing â€” Substance or Essence. It is unmeaning to talk of anything else as signified â€” any other predicate common to many. Well then, if the Form of theUniversals and the Form of those Particulars that participate in the Universals be the same, we shall have something common to both the one and the other, so that the objection called â€œThe Third Manâ€� will become applicable, and a higher Form must be postulated. But, if the Form of the Universals and the Form of the participating Particulars, be not identical, then the same name, as signifying both, will be used equivocally; just as if you applied the same denomination man to Kallias and to a piece of wood, without any common property to warrant it.

6. But the greatest difficulty of all is to understand how these Cogitable Universals, not being causes of any change or movement, contribute in any way to the objects of sense, either to the eternal or to the perishable; or how they assist us towards the knowledge thereof, being not in them, and therefore not their substance or essence; or how they stand in any real relation to their participants, being not immanent therein. Particulars certainly do not proceed from these Universals, in any intelligible sense. To say that the Universals are archetypes, and that Particulars partake in them, is unmeaning, and mere poetic metaphor. For where is the working force to mould them in conformity with the Universals? Any one thing maybelike, or maybecomelike, to any other particular thing, by accident, or without any regular antecedent cause to produce such assimilation. The same particular substance, moreover, will have not one universal archetype only, but several. Thus, the same individual man will have not only the Self-animal and the Self-biped, but also the Self-man, as archetype. Then again, there will be universal archetypes, not merely for particular sensible objects, but also for Universals themselves; thus the genus will be an archetype for its various species; so that the same which is now archetype will, under other circumstances, be copy.

7. Furthermore, it seems impossible that what is Substance or Essence can be separate from that whereof it is the substance or essence. How then can the Universals, if they be the essences of sensible things, have any existence apart from those sensible things? Plato tells us in the PhÃ¦don, that the Forms or Universals are the causes why particulars both exist at all, and come into such or such modes of existence. But even if we assume Universals as existing, still the Particulars participant therein will not come into being, unless there be some efficient cause to produce movement; moreover, many other things come into being, though there be no Universals correlating therewith,e.g.a house, or a ring. The same causes that were sufficient to bring these last into being, will be sufficient to bring all particulars into being, without assuming any Universalsextra remat all.

8. Again, if the Universals or Forms are Numbers, how can they ever be causes? Even if we suppose Particulars to be Numbers also, how can one set of Numbers be causes to the others? There can be no such causal influence, even if one set be eternal, and the other perishable.17

17Aristot. Metaph.A.p. 991, b. 13. Several other objections are made by Aristotle against that variety of the Platonic theory wherein the Ideas were commuted into Ideal Numbers. These objections do not belong to the controversy of Realism against Nominalism.

Out of the many objections raised by Aristotle against Plato, we have selected such as bear principally upon the theory of Realism; that is, upon the theory ofUniversalia ante remorextra remâ€” self-existent, archetypal, cogitable substances, in which Particulars faintly participate. The objections are not superior in acuteness, and they are decidedly inferior, in clearness of enunciation, to those that Plato himself produces in the Parmenides. Moreover, several of them are founded upon Aristotleâ€™s point of view, and would have failed to convince Plato. The great merit of Aristotle is, that he went beyond the negative of the Parmenides, asserted this new point of view of his own, and formulated it into a counter-theory. He rejected altogether the separate and exclusive reality which Plato had claimed for his Absolutes of the cogitable world, as well as the derivative and unreal semblance that alone Plato accorded to the sensible world. Without denying the distinction of the two, as conceivable and nameable, he maintained that truth and cognition required that they should be looked at in implication with each other. And he went even a step farther, in antithesis to Plato, by reversing the order of the two. Instead of considering the Cogitable Universals alone as real and complete in themselves, and the Sensible Particulars as degenerate and confused semblances of them, he placed complete reality in the Sensible Particulars alone,18and treated the Cogitable Universals as contributory appendages thereto; some being essential, others non-essential, but all of them relative, and none of them independent integers. His philosophy was a complete revolution as compared with Parmenides and Plato; a revolution, too, the more calculated to last, because he embodied it in an elaborate and original theory of Logic, Metaphysics, and Ontology. He was the first philosopher that, besides recognizing the equivocal character of those general terms whereon speculative debate chiefly turns, endeavoured methodically to set out and compare the different meanings of each term, and their relations to each other.

18Aristotle takes pains to vindicate against both Plato and the Herakleiteans the dignity of the Sensible World. They that depreciate sensible objects as perpetually changing, unstable, and unknowable, make the mistake (he observes) of confining their attention to the sublunary interior of the Kosmos, where, indeed, generation and destruction largely prevail. But this is only a small portion of the entire Kosmos. In the largest portion â€” the visible, celestial, superlunary regions â€” there is no generation or destruction at all, nothing but permanence and uniformity. In appreciating the sensible world (Aristotle says) philosophers ought to pardon the shortcomings of the smaller portion on account of the excellences of the larger; and not condemn both together on account of the smaller (Metaphys.Γ.v. p. 1010, a. 30).

However much the Ontology of Aristotle may fail to satisfy modern exigencies, still, as compared with the Platonic Realism, it was a considerable improvement. Instead of adopting Ens as a self-explaining term, contrasted with the Generated and Perishable (the doctrine of Plato in the Republic, PhÃ¦don, and TimÃ¦us), he discriminates several distinct meanings of Ens; a discrimination not always usefully pursued, but tending in the main towards a better theory. The distinction between Ens potential, and Ens actual, does not belong directly to the question between Realism and Nominalism, yet it is a portion of that philosophical revolution wrought by Aristotle against Plato â€” displacement of the seat of reality, and transfer of it from the Cogitable Universal to the Sensible Particular. The direct enunciation of this change is contained in his distinction of Ens into Fundamental and Concomitant (συμβεβηκός), and his still greater refinement on the same principle by enumerating the ten varieties of Ens called Categories or Predicaments.19He will not allow Ens (nor Unum) to be a genus, partible into species: he recognizes it only as a word of many analogous meanings, one of them principal and fundamental, the rest derivative and subordinate thereto, each in its own manner. Aristotle thus establishes a graduated scale of Entia, each having its own value and position, and its own mode of connexion with the common centre. That common centre Aristotle declared to be of necessity some individual object â€” Hoc Aliquid, That Man, This Horse, &c. This was the common subject, to which all the other Entia belonged as predicates, and without which none of them had any reality. We here fall into the language of Logic, the first theory of which we owe to Aristotle. His ontological classification was adapted to that theory.

19In enumerating the Ten Categories, Aristotle takes his departure from the Proposition â€”Homo curritâ€”Homo vincit. He assumes a particular individual as subject; and he distributes, under ten general heads, all the information that can be asked or given about that subject â€” all the predicates that can be affirmed or denied thereof. [SeeCh. iii., especiallyp. 73, seq.]

As we are here concerned only with the different ways of conceiving the relation between the Particular and the Universal, we are not called on to criticize the well-known decuple enumeration of Categories or Predicaments given by Aristotle, both in his treatise called by that name and elsewhere. For our purpose it is enough to point out that the particular sensible Hoc Aliquid is declared to be the ultimate subject, to which all Universals attach, as determinants or accompaniments; and that, if this condition be wanting, the unattached Universal cannot rank among complete Entia. The subject or First Substance, which can never become a predicate, is established as the indispensable ultimate subject for all predicates; if that disappears, all predicates disappear along with it. The Particular thus becomes the keystone of the arch whereon all Universals rest. Aristotle is indeed careful to point out a gradation in these predicates: some are essential to the subject, and thus approach so near to the First Substance that he calls them Second Substances; others, and the most in number, are not thus essential; these last are Concomitants or Accidents, and some of them fall so much short of complete Entity that he describes them as near to Non-Entia.20But all of them, essential or unessential, are alike constituents or appendages of the First Substance or Particular Subject, and have no reality in any other character.

20Aristot. Metaph.E.p. 1026, b. 21: φαίνετας γάρ τό συμβεβηκὸς ἐγγύς τι τοῦ μὴ ὄντος.There cannot be a stronger illustration of the difference between the Platonic and the Aristotelian point of view, than the fact that Plato applies the same designation to all particular objects of sense â€” that they are only midway between Entia and Non-Entia (Republic, v. pp. 478-479).

20Aristot. Metaph.E.p. 1026, b. 21: φαίνετας γάρ τό συμβεβηκὸς ἐγγύς τι τοῦ μὴ ὄντος.

There cannot be a stronger illustration of the difference between the Platonic and the Aristotelian point of view, than the fact that Plato applies the same designation to all particular objects of sense â€” that they are only midway between Entia and Non-Entia (Republic, v. pp. 478-479).

We thus have the counter-theory of Aristotle against the Platonic Realism. Instead of separate Universal Substances, containing in themselves full reality, and forfeiting much of that reality when they faded down into the shadowy copies called Particulars, he inverts the Platonic order, announces full reality to be the privilege of the Particular Sensible, and confines the function of the Universalto that of a predicate, in or along with the Particular. There is no doctrine that he protests against more frequently than the ascribing of separate reality to the Universal. The tendency to do this, he signalizes as a natural but unfortunate illusion, lessening the beneficial efficacy of universal demonstrative reasoning.21And he declares it to be a corollary from this view of the Particular as indispensable subject along with the Universal as its predicate â€” That the first principles of Demonstration in all the separate theoretical sciences must be obtained by Induction from particulars: first by impressions of sense preserved in the memory; then by multiplied remembrances enlarged into one experience; lastly, by many experiences generalized into one principle by the NoÃ»s.22

21Aristot. Analyt. Poster. I. xxiv. p. 85, a. 31, b. 19.

22See the concluding chapter of the Analytica Posteriora.A similar doctrine is stated by Plato in the PhÃ¦don (p. 96, B) as one among the intellectual phases that Sokrates had passed through in the course of his life, without continuing in them.

22See the concluding chapter of the Analytica Posteriora.

A similar doctrine is stated by Plato in the PhÃ¦don (p. 96, B) as one among the intellectual phases that Sokrates had passed through in the course of his life, without continuing in them.

While Aristotle thus declares Induction to be the source from whence Demonstration in these separate sciences draws its first principles, we must at the same time acknowledge that his manner of treating Science is not always conformable to this declaration, and that he often seems to forget Induction altogether. This is the case not only in his First Philosophy, or Metaphysics, but also in his Physics. He there professes to trace out what he calls beginnings, causes, elements, &c., and he analyses most of the highest generalities. Yet still these analytical enquiries (whatever be their value) are usually, if not always, kept in subordination to the counter-theory that he had set up against the Platonic Realism. Complete reality resides (he constantly repeats) only in the particular sensible substances and sensible facts or movements that compose the aggregate Kosmos: which is not generated, but eternal, both as to substance and as to movement. If these sensible substances disappear, nothing remains. The beginnings and causes exist only relatively to these particulars. Form, Matter, Privation, are not real Beings, antecedent to the Kosmos, and pre-existent generators of the substances constituting the Kosmos; they are logical fragments or factors, obtained by mental analysis and comparison, assisting to methodize our philosophical point of view or conception of those substances, but incapable of being understood, and having no value of their own, apart from the substances. Some such logical analysis (that of Aristotle or some other) is an indispensable condition even of the most strictly inductive philosophy.

There are some portions of the writings of Aristotle (especially the third book De AnimÃ¢ and the twelfth book of the Metaphysica) where he appears to lose sight of the limit here indicated; but, with few exceptions, we find him constantly remembering, and often repeating, the great truth formulated in his Categories: that full or substantive reality resides only in the Hoc Aliquid, with its predicates implicated with it, and that even the highest of these predicates (Second Substances) have no reality apart from some one of their particulars. We must recollect that, though Aristotle denies to the predicates aseparatereality, he recognizes in them anadjectivereality, as accompaniments and determinants: he contemplates all the ten Categories as distinct varieties of existence.23This is sufficient as a basis for abstraction, whereby we can name them and reason upon them as distinct objects of thought or points of view, although none of them come into reality except as implicated with a sensible particular. Of such reasoning Aristotleâ€™s First Philosophy chiefly consists; and he introduces peculiar phrases to describe this distinction of reason between two different points of view, where the real object spoken of is one and the same. The frequency of the occasions taken to point out that distinction marks his anxiety to keep the First Philosophy in harmony with the theory of Reality announced in his Categories.

23Aristot. Metaphys.Δ.p. 1017, a. 23: ὀσαχῶς γὰρ λέγεται (τὰ σχήματα τῆς κατηγορίας), τοσαυταχῶς τὸ εἶναι σημαίνει.

The Categories of Aristotle appear to have become more widely known than any other part of his philosophy. They were much discussed by the sects coming after him; and, even when not adopted, were present to speculative minds as a scheme to be amended.24Most of the arguments turned upon the nine later Categories: it was debated whether these were properly enumerated and discriminated, and whether the enumeration as a whole was exhaustive.

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